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Monte veteran featured in VFW Magazine

By Brionna Friedrich

The Daily World

Monte resident Herb Beck was reunited with his brother one last time in the June/July issue of the national VFW Magazine.

John Beck died in 2009 of congestive heart failure, but the brothers were featured in the magazine in a story on brothers in the military. They served together in the Korean War, one of the rare pairs of brothers to serve in the same unit.

“I’m pretty proud of that really. My brother and I slept in the same tent,” Herb Beck said.

They served in 1953 in the Army’s B Company, 11th Engineer Combat Battalion, a unit that cleared minefields. John was a squad leader, and Herb served as a supply sergeant.

Herb Beck said he put in the request for his kid brother to serve with him, and the two would often sit together to write home to their parents in Delmont, S.D.

Having arrived in Korea a few months before John, Herb was the first to leave.

“The hardest thing was when I had to leave him behind,” he said.

Herb returned to his wife and baby son, then moved to Montesano where he worked in tire sales and service for 31 years before retiring in 1991.